Forgotten
by DeltaG
Summary: Inner Colony Skopje, 2547. ODSTs were sent in to make sure the equipment from the planet safely escaped the planet and got on their way to Reach. The final hours of the struggle to keep the equipment from the Covenant on Skopje.
1. Loss

**DISCLAIMER: I do not own Halo, Bungie does.**

_1831/6:31 PM (Military Calender), Unknown Date, 2547, Inner Colony Skopje, Unknown shipyard_

Felix Earl held his ODST helmet in his hands, his reflection slightly visible in the blue visor. He grinned and put it on his head, the HUD immediately flickering on as he stood and turned to face his squad.

Immediately to his left was Corporal Ray Porter, holding his shotgun down and looking around at the other members of the squad.

To his right was Private Brian Zaza, looking out onto the platform for any survivors of the Covenant. His rifle was steady in his hands as he squeezed off a shot, and a squeal followed.

"Nice shot Za'," that was Lieutenant Norman Star. He was sitting idly on a crate, a cigarette in his hand. His rifle was leaning on the crate next to him, barrel pointed to the floor. His helmet was on the ground in front of him, the blue visor reflecting Felix's own feet to him.

"Thank you, sir," Zaza nodded and turned around and looked past Felix to the groups of engineers loading the equipment onto the ships. Their standing orders were to protect them until they got away to Reach, though the probability was looking less and less with every wave of Covenant.

They'd already lost Corporal Delso on the first rush, and then on the second rush a few Grunts had gotten through and they'd had to hunt them down.

"You know something, guys?" Porter asked suddenly, sitting down against the sandbags stacked behind him.

"What?" Felix was curious.

"We're not making it out of here alive," Porter stated matter-of-factly, and the fact that Porter would say that in that tone was enough to chill Felix.

"You don't know that, Corporal," Lt. Star answered, turning to face the Corporal, who was now inspecting his shotgun and loading it with more rounds.

"Sir, if I may, I'm calling bullshit on this entire op," Porter said back, looking over to where the engineers were still carting their tools to the ships. This op had been going on a while, and it looked like they were nearly done, but they just kept coming with more of their tools and items they needed for the war.

"Humor me."

"Sir, they're sending ODSTs to defend a shipyard during a planetary invasion that they know they've already lost. The Covenant are holding back on us, or we'd already be dead. We're cannon fodder, sir, just waste that will be burned by the Covenant."

"Interesting theory," Star took a puff of the cigarette and then stubbed it.

"Motion sensors detect four mobile hostiles... What the hell?" Zaza suddenly jumped back, aiming his rifle to the left of their position.

"Four contacts, sir. What the hell?" Felix said. He saw the indicators flicker out and then back, and then off again. What the hell was this?

"Earl, Zaza, check it out if you believe so strongly," the Lieutenant ordered, reaching for his MA5B and loading it. He stood and turned, looking the direction the other two were looking and then motioned with his hand.

Felix nodded to Zaza and the pair began slowly moving away from the other ODSTs, Felix's MA5B directed to the left, Zaza's to the right.

"Sir," Felix stopped dead, looking straight at where his sight had been trained at. Was that a flicker in the air?

"_Go ahead Corporal."_

"Looks like something here is cloaked, or I'm seeing things, sir," Felix muttered through the Com channel and continued edging forward with Zaza, who was now a couple of feet ahead of him.

"Check corners," Zaza reminded him. Felix nodded in recognition and turned the corner to the left, while the Private checked the right. Both were empty, the tools having been cleared from here already.

"Sir, we've got nothing on sensors or sight here," Felix relayed into the COM channel.

"_Head on back, looks like the engineers are just finishing up here."_

"Yes, sir," the pair of ODSTs replied simultaneously. They turned on their heels and quickly made their way back to the area, where they found the engineers loading their last pieces of equipment onto the ships.

Suddenly the motion sensors detected another flicker of motion, almost directly behind Felix.

"What the fuck?" he muttered.

"What the hell did they do to these things?" Zaza had his helmet off now and was looking at it, as if that would solve the motion sensing problem.

Suddenly Felix heard the sound of an energy sword turning on and dove forward. Zaza wasn't so lucky, and a bloodcurdling scream pierced all of the ODSTs' ears as an Elite uncloaked, Zaza speared on the sword facing skyward.

"Shit, shit, shit!"

"Contact, contact!"

Felix heard a flurry of voices, and then rolled over to see an Elite kneeling over him, his energy sword humming in his face. The alien's mandibles twitched, and then he raised his arm to bring the sword down onto his chest.

"Die, bastard!" Porter's voice followed his shotgun round into the side of the Elite, who was knocked sideways from the force of it, the energy sword spinning off after him.

Felix scrambled to get up, his HUD flashing that there were now multiple enemy signatures around them and among them. There was also a large group off to the left side, that was moving quickly towards them.

"Move!" the Lieutenant's voice made Felix begin moving, sprinting towards the engineer's who were now in their own flight. He was dimly aware his MA5B was left on the ground behind him, leaving him with his knife and pistol as his only weapons.

"Oh, please, NOOOOOOO!" Felix turned to see one of the Engineer's up in the grip of an Elite, an energy sword plunged through his chest.

He didn't even lift his pistol to fire, knowing the man was already dead. He turned his head in time to vault over a moving table with some last pieces of equipment on it. He grabbed the edge as he jumped and overturned it, taking cover behind it as it crashed onto its side.

"What the hell, soldier?" an angry engineer was at his side as he did so, but then realized the danger and followed his fellows.

"_Come in Alpha squad, this is Lieutenant Star. If there are any survivors, respond now!"_

"Sir..." Felix muttered into the comms breathlessly, clutching his pistol close to him as he peered over the cover. He could see Grunts marching into the shipyard, plasma pistols in their hands. The vulture-faced Jackals followed in small numbers, needle rifles in their hands.

"_Sir!" _another voice responded, followed by the sound of a shotgun blast, and then silence.

"_Corporal? Corporal? Dammit, Porter, respond!"_

"I think he's dead, sir," Felix grunted.

"_Well, no shit, Earl. Where the hell did you go?"_

"Somewhere among the engineers, sir. Looks like they've got Grunts and Jackals coming, as well."

"_Christ..."_

With that, Star's voice went silent, and Felix felt alone, more alone than he'd ever been before. He looked at the pistol in his hand and examined his ammunition. Two mags on backup, and the mag left in the gun itself.

"Shit," The ODST muttered to himself and peered around the table once more. A needle streaked past his helmet and stuck in the floor behind him.

"Even better," He muttered.


	2. Spartan

_1900/7:00 PM, Unknown Date, 2547 (Military Calender), Inner Colony Skopje, Unknown shipyard_

Lieutenant Star gripped his MA5B tight as he crawled under the broken wall, listening intently for comms activity. The last he'd had was with Earl, and now he was silent.

His hand splashed into water, and he looked up to see a steady trickle from a broken pipe, the water splashing onto his visor and trickling off. He raised a gloved hand and wiped away the remaining water and continued moving forward.

He reached an area where he could stand up and he did so slowly, looking around for and hints of the Covenant, intent on taking down as many as he could before they took him.

The Lieutenant continued forward and turned to the right and saw a surprising sight in front of him. Directly to his front was an uncloaked Elite, his energy sword swinging at a group of Marines firing at him from afar, but they were being backed into a corner. As Star watched, the nearest Marine was cut clean in half, his blood splattering across the floor, the walls, and the ceiling.

Star reacted instinctively and sprinted forward and threw himself forward, his combat knife pointing downward as he grabbed onto the Elite's back and plunged the knife downward into an exposed piece of skin on its neck.

"Die, dammit!" Star exclaimed, pulling the knife out and dropping down to plunge it through another crevice in the armor lower on its body.

The Elite let out a screech and toppled over onto its side, its purple blood spilling and mixing with the red of the already dead marines.

"Sir!" the Marines saw him and saluted, their rifles at their sides as they focused on the Lieutenant.

"At ease, men," Star stepped forward, his boots sloshing in the blood of the fallen enemy, "Who here is the commanding officer?"

"Me, sir! Sergeant Diel at your service!" the Marine in front spoke up and stepped forward, pointing his rifle down the hall in case anymore of the Covenant decided to show their faces.

"Can you establish comms, Diel?"

"No sir, looks as if they've jammed all of them. We lost contact with our HQ about a half hour ago," Diel explained.

"Shit," Star attempted to open a COM channel to Earl, but the Corporal wasn't responding. He already had two deaths on him, and he'd be damned if he was going to let a third happen.

_1920/7:20 PM, Unknown Date, 2547 (Military Calender), Inner Colony Skopje, Unknown shipyard_

"Lock and load, Marines!" Sergeant Terence Hallows ordered, loading his MA5B. He tapped at the console, and the doors in front of the group of four Marines opened silently, the hallways empty.

"Piers, Gallows, check corners," Hallows ordered in almost a whisper over the COM channel. The Private and Corporal advanced slowly down the hallway, peering into the now empty rooms as they went, and then turned to peek around the corners at either end of the hallway.

"Clear."

"Clear."

"Move up," Hallows and the remaining Marine, Allan, moved up after the other pair, "Allan, Piers, take the right. Gallows, you're with me."

This would be difficult. Long-range comms had been cut about half an hour ago, though short-range COM channels still worked. As far as the Sergeant knew, they still had standing orders to search and recover any remaining men on the shipyard, and to secure or destroy anything that would be useful to the Covenant. This was for the sake of the rest of the Inner Colonies, and Earth itself. There was no room for error.

"Gallows, take point," Hallows ordered, training his rifle to their backs, towards the other Marines.

"Yes, sir," came the response.

The pair edged down the hallway, listening intently for anything that would indicate an enemy presence. Hallows even slowed his breathing, and watched for flickers in the air that would indicate a cloaked Elite.

"Cle-" Hallows didn't even hear the end of the sentence before he was thrown into the wall head first and crumpled to the ground, a fainting buzzing sound filling his ears.

_1925/7:25 PM, Unknown Date, 2547 (Military Calender), Inner Colony Skopje, Unknown shipyard_

Corporal Gallows barely ducked under the hissing energy sword, and fired up at the Elite, the bullets pinging off of its armor.

"SHIT!" he screamed, jumping backwards and landing on his back, still firing the MA5B at the Elite, who now towered over him, his arm raised.

Then the energy sword seemed to freeze in the air, and a loud grunt escaped the Elite's mouth before it toppled sideways, purple blood spilling out of it's throat. The energy sword hit the floor beside Gallows and flickered off.

"What the-" he knew as soon as he saw the gold-visored helmet. A Spartan stood in front of him now, holding a hand down to help him up. A bloody knife in his hands, it was this man who had saved Gallows' life.

Gallows was speechless. This was a Spartan, the legendary figures of the UNSC. Nobody really knew if they weren't just robots made of thick suits of armor and made to shoot weapons at threats. The Spartan was taller than Gallows, about 7' and was reaching down with a hand to help him up now.

He took it, and the Spartan pulled him up as if he was a feather. Gallows turned to the Elite as the Spartan bent down and retrieved the energy sword.

Gallows then sprinted over to Hallows, ignoring the voices in the COM channel and began to check his CO over. He checked for a pulse and didn't find one, and then saw the blood running from under the Marine's helmet.

"Sarge," Hallows said in a low voice. He looked down and then, remembering his duty, ripped the dog tags from the Sergeant's neck, leaving one placed in his hand.

"_Gallows, what the hell was that!?" _Piers' voice was shaky and sounded like he knew something was wrong.

"Sarge is dead," the Corporal muttered solemnly, "but there's some good news... We have a Spartan with us."

"_Are you shitting me, Corporal?" _Allan asked, amazement and sadness in his voice at the same time.

"No, Private. Get your asses over here now, before we have to come hunting you two down," Gallows responded.

Thirty seconds later, the two Marines were with Gallows and the Spartan, looking curiously as the Spartan policed the Elite and came up with a plasma rifle.

"Okay, what's with the staring, Marines?' the Spartan suddenly turned tot hem and asked. He towered over them, and Gallows was frightened for a moment and was glad the Spartans were on their side.

"It's just... You're a Spartan!" Allan summed it up for all of them, and the two others remained silent.

"Fair point," the Spartan gave and sat down against the wall, looking up at the Marines.

"What are you doing here, sir? We thought we were the only ones left in this section," Piers asked.

"Well, it's a good story, and we've got some time before we get glassed. By the way, I'm Petty Officer Victor Spartan-098, now if you want to hear, listen up..."


End file.
